He lay there and bent his mind upon the puzzle, intensely, wonderingly.
It had been bravado with him up to the time that he knew this girl was coming out.

After that, curiosity and a sense of fair play, mingled, had ensued.

Then a new feeling had come after he had met the girl herself--pity, and remorse in regard to a helpless woman.

Sim Gage did not know the dangerous kinship that pity holds.

He knew no proverbs and no poetry.
But now, mixed also with his feeling of vague loss, his sense of rage, there was now, as Sim Gage realized perfectly well, a new and yet more powerful emotion in his soul.